


Samidare

by Asphodel_Sky



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Brother/Brother Incest, Gore, Hallucinations, Incest, M/M, Oh yeah baby it's gonna be a ride for the twins, Sharing a Bed, Sibling Incest, Tragedy, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 13:43:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20583455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asphodel_Sky/pseuds/Asphodel_Sky
Summary: If Vergil thought he's free from nightmares just because he cut them out, he's very, very wrong.(PLEASE CHECK THE BEGINNING NOTES, AS THERE ARE ALL THE TRIGGERS)





	Samidare

**Author's Note:**

> FIRST HALLUCINATION CW: gore
> 
> SECOND HALLUCINATION CW: gore, insects
> 
> THIRD HALLUCINATION CW: gore, hanging, graves, suffocating, children 
> 
> All graphic hallucinations are from Vergil's POV, so if you want to skip them because of the triggers, you can do that without a problem and skip either to the end of hallucination or to Dante's POV. Each POV has a large breaks between them, so finding them shouldn't be hard. 
> 
> All needed credits are in the end notes.

The entirety of Devil May Cry is infected by roses. 

They are growing from the walls, from between wood panels, the whole desk is a giant bush of bloody red flowers. He can clearly see dark brown roots peaking out of the cracks they themselves made, destroying completely the old wallpaper and the handrail of the staircase. The weapons on the walls are wrapped in the vines. Roses seem to like dangerous things the best, because ruby red flowers are almost completely covering the guns and daggers hanged on the wall behind the desk. It all looks as if Dante's garden has decided the soil of the backyard is not good enough anymore and took a residence in the office. Blood, deep red, almost black even, is dripping from numerous thorns. 

_ Dante's blood. _

Wondrous scarlet color and that divine smell he would recognise _ everywhere _ hits Vergil's eyes and nose, he could almost swear he can taste it on his tongue. Rich in the scent, pigment and flavor, blood in equal parts as humane as it is devilish that makes him almost salivate at the thought of getting it on his lips, down into his throat in huge sips, this sweet, dark liquid holding the power and essence of his brother. 

And those flowers are drinking it shamelessly, taking, _ stealing _ the precious life force away from little brother, wasting it when they can't drink all of it, making blood spill on the floor. 

Where is he? 

Vergil comes closer to the desk and inspects the flowers for a minute, and then he felt that pull. He cuts down the sprouts immediately and under them he sees Dante's body. 

The roses are growing out of _ him _, Vergil suddenly realises. His chest is open, ribcage completely shattered, the roots are digging and piercing the still beating heart, feeding off of it and growing out flowers in the colour of the blood they just drank. They are pulsing with the raw energy, drowning in Dante's power, they then immediately rot away and fall off to make place for new blossoms. This whole cycle happens in barely twenty seconds. 

The picture that should be so beautiful, so serene for Vergil, yet the quiet is filled with a sense of dread. This is a nightmarish vision hidden under a pretty picture. 

Vergil wants to touch Dante's face, make him wake up from this weird, unnatural slumber, tear the vines out of his chest and let the open wound to heal itself and close. 

But Vergil can't make himself move, so he's just standing there, not doing anything except for staring at his brother's body, with Dante's mind caged inside, within a dream that he _ knows _ should have woken him up long time ago. 

He feels his hearts beating in a loud staccato. 

_ Why he is not waking up? _

“—ergil. Dammit, Vergil!”

He blinks twice, and suddenly the vision is gone. 

The office looks just as always. The desk is empty sans the picture of Eva and the old phone. Papers, notes and books are spilled on the floor, the walls don't have any cracks. Everything is fine. 

There is no sign of roses. 

What in the…? 

“You have been glaring at my desk for five minutes now. What did it do to you? It's just doing its job by standing there.”

Vergil doesn't answer that question, still disoriented. 

What even _ was _ that vision? Was it an illusion? Or maybe a look into the future? He could see Dante becoming so neglectful of his garden, or maybe even reality that he lets his precious, beloved flowers to feed off of him and his blood and overgrow the whole office. 

“Vergil?”

“Don't worry, I was merely lost in my thoughts.”

Dante hums in response, but doesn't seem overly convinced by that statement. That doesn't matter, he'll find the answer and fix this problem before it can even begin being something more than a simple distraction and inconvenience. 

When his heart finally stops pounding in his chest, he slowly breathes in and out and goes to the storage room located in the upstairs part of Devil May Cry, in which there are boxes full of notes, books, relatively safe artifacts and much more things. Dante has acquired so many items over the years from so many people and places that this room is positively a treasure hunt for Vergil to explore. 

Now, from which pack he should begin? The one having notes about rituals and wards? Or maybe spells and hexes one? Maybe he should start by looking what artifacts his brother has here to see if they're not affecting him in some way? 

Nonetheless, he'll start with this room and if there will be nothing to be found, he'll try with the second room behind the kitchen, where his little brother keeps Devil Arms and more dangerous artifacts under a system of seals and wards, which looks and feels pretty impressive. When Vergil asked Dante about that, he just shrugged and said something about usefulness of being good at this thing when he met a smarter bunch than normally demons and devils are, or when he needed to explore old places and there was a need for him to disable wards to even get close to the building in the first place. It was all for practical reasons, said Dante. 

All in all, Vergil has quite a bit of research material in the office, he just hopes he'll find the way to fix the problem using the Devil May Cry resources and be done with it without alarming his brother. The last thing he wants is to trigger Dante’s overprotectiveness. He might be good at hiding it, but not enough to hide it indefinitely from him. The signs are small, almost nonexistent, but it’s easy to find them if you are paying close attention and you actually live with Dante under the same roof. And overprotective Dante would be a pain on the ass to deal with, when he is very carefully observing you at all times, using not only his eyes but also with his powers and Vergil can practically _ feel _ how tightly is surrounding the person that his brother feels the overwhelming need to protect and how it looks as if he was _ suffocating _ them in a tight, sticky embrace of his power. He doesn't want to feel this. He doesn't _ need _ to feel this. How it sticks to his body, the heavy, too warm feeling that makes his body tremble. He doesn't need Dante's care — it's Vergil who should give care to him as the older brother and not the opposite. 

Vergil explains his unwillingness to feel this thing by the years he spent without a kind touch since he was eight. He wasn't just sure for how many of those years went by though, at least until Dante said he's now forty-three year old. That means Vergil lost twenty-four years of his life to things outside of his control. He doesn't even remember anything, though he figures he had a sound reasoning to cut the memories out. 

But enough of those thoughts. He needs to find a fix to his current problem. 

  


Dante worries about Vergil. 

Since that day when his older brother was staring at his poor desk with a murder and the slightest hint of panic in his eyes, he's been on research sprees, which wouldn't be so out of character for him, if it weren't for those long gazes at the walls and floor and other things in Devil May Cry, that are more and more frequent the more time passes. Vergil tries to play it off as being lost in his thoughts, but then he wouldn't be so focused looking at one point as if he was _ seeing _ something that isn't there. He would have the slightly 'not there' look in his eyes, he wouldn't be so hyper aware of any and all movements, even if those movements are not there. 

Like right now, for example. Vergil is getting more and more frustrated the longer he reads his book, probably because he can't find the answer he's looking for, or the older twin read something that he _ really _ doesn't like and suddenly he stops reading and his sight is directed at the doors, then at the floor, and then he's carefully looking over the office. 

The books he reads and artifacts Vergil examines are pretty weird too. They have nothing in common, except for they all in some way connected to the mind, visions and dreams. Well he wouldn't exactly know the books are connected in that way of he hadn't checked from which box Vergil has taken them out. And if it wasn't for that the elder wasn't yet through with the previous book box. 

(He just had to check what he's researching, he really, _ really _ doesn't want something like the Temen-Ni-Gru Teenage Drama or Qliphoth 'Gardening Gone Wrong' to happen _ again _.)

It's not a normal behavior for his brother. 

There's clearly something wrong. 

Not that Vergil would ever tell him what's going on, that stubborn, too proud for his own good dumbass. Probably thinks he can fix this without any help, even two weeks after the day it all started and many, many books later and no conclusions. So Dante needs to find out for himself what's going on and present Vergil with the deed done. He will probably get stabbed for that, but eh, it's nothing new and at the very least he will know how to help his brother. Probably. He's almost sure of that. 

Now, if Dante just starts reading what Vergil reads, he will immediately know what's going on, he'll just be a prissy, offended princess for the rest of the eternity for that and probably scream at Dante for that too, so that route goes down the sink (not that he doesn't understand it, but his paranoia and instincts _ scream _ at him to _ do something _ . He was never a guy to sit by when his loved ones have problems with which he can help, he also doesn't expect his friends and family that _ they _ would just sit and not do anything when it's obvious _ he _ has some problems, even if he doesn't want their help, or he doesn't want to be a burden for them. The period after Mallet and before Vie del Marli comes to his mind). And if Vergil was going the demonic origin route, then maybe Dante should get his hands on some human books about mind and brain, just to cover all bases. One of them will surely finally find something… 

Hm. Yeah, that's the route to go. Maybe he should link it with mind and brain in particular. He's got a feeling about that one and Dante has learnt long ago to not ignore his instincts. They saved his ass more than once in a dire situations and not so dire, like that one time when he felt he should hang his coat by the doors this time and sure enough, it later turned out his coat would get destroyed down because of a… cooking incident with Lady that blew up half of the office. True, they were doing some experimental holy water bombs to make them deal more damage to demons with some sort of ward that would trigger in case if Dante was in the bomb's range. Sadly, nothing came out of this, but his kitchen has never before been so clean of any demonic energy Dante unconsciously releases and intertwines with Devil May Cry's walls. The downside was that he couldn't use his own kitchen for a few days because of how much it was saturated in holy water and even his clothes somehow caught on fire. After this incident they both swore off any kind of experiments with holy water bombs, so of course a week later they were making more conventional bombs at Lady's place. 

But that's beside the point now. Dante has some kind of beginning point, he now has to find the closest library and go there, which is… pretty weird for him. Normally he would just snatch the books that have interested him whenever he comes across a library during one of his bigger jobs and there the chances that someone would even realise there's a missing book or five, maybe more are practically non-existent. But now the devil hunter is going to actually go to the library and read books in the building that is _ not _ his office. It's… something unusual. And weirdly vulnerable. Dante doesn't like it at all, doesn't like being in an unknown place where he can easily be seen, stalked and targeted by one of his many enemies, but it'll be better than Vergil catching on what Dante is doing and risking that his brother will stop him from trying to help. 

(He just doesn't want to lose his twin again.)

What a joy, trying to help Vergil when he probably doesn't want it and overcoming (or not) his own discomfort and paranoia. The things he does for his ungrateful older brother, really… 

  


Nothing. 

Vergil read every book, checked every single artifact this place has and he could find _ nothing _ . There were some things that gave him hope that might be a thing the older is looking for, just for that hope to be crushed when there was even one detail that didn't match up _ at all. _ With every book he's read and every artifact he studied Vergil felt more and more frustrated, all the while those weird 'dreams' were happening, not letting him focus on a task at hand, all of them different and unique and the newer ones making his skin crawl and making him feel panic he doesn't want to feel ever again. Because of them Vergil is at his wits end and so, _ so tired. _

What puts him in an even worse mood is that Dante recently started to avoid him. He's constantly going out, doesn't tell Vergil _ anything _ , sometimes he even forgets he should _ at least _ leave a note he's going out so that Vergil won't have a near heart attack and not feel abandoned again. Because even if they didn't talk, just Dante's warm presence helps him go through the day, the calm, soft and _ constant _ calling of his brother's power does a lot to sooth his nerves (as long as it doesn't stick to his body) and calms Vergil down, but now it was reduced by a _ half _ because of how often he was leaving the office and leaving Vergil alone. Recently they were meeting up only in bed to sleep and even that sometimes didn't let Vergil to meet and talk with Dante. The older twin feels as if he didn't saw his brother for _ days _, for all they share one roof over their heads now. 

It's a sad state of affairs if they can't even bicker with each other anymore because they're usually too tired to even exchange goodnights when they get to go to bed together. 

Oh, speak about the devil and he shall appear. 

It's weird though, Dante is unusually early here. And he looks… pretty bad. Vergil didn't have really a chance to _ actually _ see him in a direct light for a week now, Dante always woke up and left the office before Vergil even opened his eyes. 

His brother is paler than a wall, the shadows under his eyes are very visible, making Dante look as if he is ten years older, his eyes are bloodshot as if he wasn't blinking for quite some time or sleeping very badly for the past few days, hair disheveled, probably because he was riding Cavaliere just, a few minutes ago. 

Dante also has some book in hand with a light cover. He opens it on a seemingly random page and gives it to Vergil. 

“Read this” he says, not even making a small talk (which is unusual enough for Dante) and sits down next to Vergil on a couch. He seems to be exhausted. 

He decides to humor his brother. 

_ 'When you realise that your hallucinations happen with a much higher frequency than you feel they should, one of the first steps to take is to go to the psychologist, yes, but also finding a thing that will help you focus your thoughts and ground you in the reality. This thing can be anything, but most people use something of sentimental value or makes them feel safe. It can be also a person or a pet. _

_ There's a few kinds of hallucinations: auditory, visual, (...)' _

“What's the meaning of this.” 

“Vergil…”

“I never asked you to meddle in my affairs!”

“Vergil…!”

“I said it's nothing! I can take care of this problem and fix it myself! I am more than capable to do so!”

“Vergil!”

“And now you're going behind my back to what?! To prove I can't _do_ _anything by myself?! That I'm a fai—”_

“STOP BEHAVING LIKE A SPOILED BRAT AND LISTEN TO ME, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!”

Vergil shuts up and goes still. 

Dante screamed at him. 

_ Dante screamed at him. _

His brother never screams, not at Vergil at least, or any of his friends. He barely ever gets angry. Dante also doesn't use slurs, for all he doesn't care about a dirt and mess in the shop, his little brother keeps his language clean. Dante was always one with an easy going nature and for all his fighting prowess and love of battle he likes keeping peace and quiet in his own home. That Vergil was able so easily anger him… 

Maybe not only Vergil has been stressed for the past three weeks. 

Dante sighs and start speaking when he sees Vergil is now actually listening to him. 

“Goddammit. If you think I haven't noticed there's something wrong, wrong enough for _ you _ to start researching it, then you have another thing coming. I know you don't like needing or getting help from anyone, but… fuck I'm not good at this. I just don't want for something like Temen-Ni-Gru to happen again with those dick measuring contests we used to get into and being idiot assholes.”

Dante takes a breath. 

“Seeing as you started looking for answers in a demonic knowledge, I just thought of covering all bases and research human's side of things, just in case if I find something there. And as you can see, I _ did _ find it. Demons don't document anything about biological aspects of mind, as in how it works and all of that, all in the meanwhile humans are researching this topic for literal decades. Just, just let me help you.”

And then he adds, quietly, as if he is talking to himself and not to Vergil:

“I don't wanna feel useless anymore.”

Vergil has been… working on his compassion and empathy. Something he discarded long ago as useless things, but now are very much-needed to try to understand why Dante is feeling like this. The thing is, it's still not easy to do it, Vergil is not experienced enough, so his mind can't find anything that would explain his brother's words. 

Being a human is so hard sometimes. 

Vergil looks at Dante again. 

On his brother's face are cracks. Two, then four, then eight, growing bigger and bigger until he could see the muscles. The color of Dante's skin that still remained turned gray and from under it spiders are coming out and roam on his face. The skin was ever so slowly falling off, showing nests of white larvae.

“Vergil?”

Whites of Dante's eyes are changing color to red, while his pupils are now black. 

“Vergil!”

Red hunter takes Vergil's face in his hands, slowly circling thumbs on the cheeks. 

“Focus Vergil. You're hallucinating. Whatever you see now is not true.”

How can it not be true when he clearly _ sees _ it? His senses wouldn't betray him like that. 

Then Vergil remembers the last few weeks and takes a shuddering breath. Dante is right, damn him. He's _ right _ and Vergil despises it. 

“Sentimental thing, sentimental… dammit, I kinda ate mother's amulets when I absorbed Sparda, it has to be something else… maybe…”

His brother looks around, the insects now infested his whole body and now they are on Vergil, he can _ feel _ them walking and it makes his skin crawl at the unpleasant feeling. His brother's body now sports multiple wounds, each of them suppurated and it makes Vergil shudder. Dante gets up from the couch and in an instant the vision gets worse when the contact of their bodies is severed. 

The whole room gets dark and cold, he can feel dirt under his feet, the walls are bleeding and there are various insects _ everywhere _ . The couch he's sitting on is slowly sinking down and a myriad of spiders are getting out of the holes in the worn material. He hears breaking bones and the overwhelming odor of rotting flesh hits his nose. Tears are welling in his eyes now and he feels as if he's going to puke. And there's something in the shadows, he can feel it clearly, something dangerous, something sinister, _ bad _ that makes him want to run far away firm this place. 

And that's when Dante comes back, his presence is warming his skin and when his brother sits down, he gives Vergil Yamato. 

Yamato was always able to chase away bad dreams and nightmares, has always grounded him in the reality, the elegant blade makes him feel much safer and not as helpless, even now that he can rip apart any of his enemies without her. The soft humming of power in the katana eases his breathing and slows down his quickly beating heart. 

And just like that, the hallucination is gone. Devil May Cry looks exactly like it should, _ Dante _ looks exactly like he should and everything _ feels _ like it should to his senses. 

What worries Vergil somewhat is that his… hallucinations… now can alternate his brother's appearance. Usually he just saw a different, not real Dante in his visions and when his real brother showed up the hallucination disappeared. But it seems it won't work in the future anymore. 

“So you say it's a human thing…” Vergil starts, trying to pretend nothing has happened at all. 

“Nah, not really, but humans have right ideas for a temporary fix at least. I don't think the hallucinations are caused by a schizophrenia, unless you're not telling me something…?”

“I can assure you it's not that.”

“And you probably don't wanna go to the doctor and get the prescription for antipsychotics.”

“And what, tell them I literally cut out my own memories and nightmares? No way.”

Dante tilts his head back and hides his face with hands. 

“I get the feeling next few weeks won't be easy…”

This evening, when they are readying themselves to go to sleep, Vergil realises it was the first time Dante touched him outside the battle. Even when they're in bed, the younger man is careful to not touch him or to cross any boundaries he seemed to draw between them. 

What surprises him more is how the touch wasn't repulsive for him, he would even go as far as to say he _ welcomed _ it and… Vergil isn't sure how he should feel about that. 

The way he was holding his face, gently, how he moved his thumbs in calming motions… 

It's so strange. Yet Vergil thinks he wouldn't be too opposed if Dante were to do this again in the future. 

  


The phone on his desk is ringing. 

On one hand, Dante doesn't want to answer it, but on the other… they need money to pay bills if nothing else. Besides if he won't get out of here to fight some demons he's going to explode and destroy half of his office. He can feel the first signs of anxiety, how his muscles are tense, how he's got problems with falling asleep, how he's waking up every hour, how the instincts and paranoia are driving him _ insane. _

For the continued good condition of Devil May Cry, he needs to go to job and vent out his frustrations. 

Normally Dante would probably challenge Vergil for a duel, but taking under the account that his hallucinations can strike in the worst of times (just like when the visions have begun when Vergil was in the bathroom and didn’t take Yamato with him. It was one of the more memorable situations, if really embarrassing for both of them and that made Dante to _ not _ fight with Vergil, in case one of those happen during their duel and the red hunter is not going to harm his brother beyond repair, even by accident) this way of calming Dante down goes out of the window. 

He doesn't want to leave Vergil alone, but… 

“Devil May Cry.”

Dante just hopes that if Vergil's hallucinations trigger, they won't be so bad that Yamato won't be able to 'wake' his brother up from them and that this job won't take too much time. 

Of course, he jinxed it. 

The job was supposed to be _ easy, _ just a simple destruction of the demon nest, but of _ course _ the client 'forgot' to mention just how _ big _ this nest is. Something that should take two hours max, including the time needed to travel from Devil May Cry and back, took a whole day, since ten in the morning until eleven in the evening. The only good thing is that he was able to convince Lady to collect the cash when he calls her, because he doesn't want to be away from Vergil for even a minute longer than he absolutely needs to, and he would be scammed for the money anyway because of his bleeding heart. Lady might take some cash as a payment for her services, but Dante still is going to end with more money than he would normally take. 

After finally finding the payphone and getting Lady to do what she promised to do, Dante quickly gets on Cavaliere and drives back to the office. 

The first thing that hits his nose upon entering the shop is the strong smell of alcohol in the air. Huh. He has never taken Vergil for a drinking type, especially seeing how much of a lightweight he is. 

Speaking of Vergil, he's sitting by the desk, with half of Jack Daniel's bottle empty next to him and the head is hidden in his arms. Yamato was standing next to the desk, close to Vergil. He was also partially triggered — the tail was clearly hugging the katana like some sort of teddy bear. 

“I hope you know that whiskey is not an answer to your problems, brother.”

Vergil looks up at Dante and gives him a drunken smile. 

“Just wanted to see why you like this so much” he looks at the bottle, takes it and drinks directly from it. “It's _ nasty. _ Yet, the taste is intriguing. _ When Butterflies — renounce their “drams” — I shall but drink the more!” _

“Heh, you always had the strangest taste in poetry. Dickinson isn't a first choice for many people when they're drunk.”

“Says the guy who loved reading _ Electra _ as a kid. And you're probably quoting _ Hamlet _ while drunk.”

“Touché.”

Dante comes closer to the desk and takes Vergil's arm, hauls him up and snakes one arm around his brother's waist, one of Vergil's arms he puts around his shoulder. It'll be easier to get his to the bedroom without carrying him princess style or sack of potatoes style. 

“Now come on, we gotta put you to bed, you'll be cursing your entire existence tomorrow as it is.”

The trip through the stairs certainly wasn't the easiest one, considering the fact Vergil was tripping on every step they made, probably on purpose just to make Dante work more, but somehow they managed and red hunter is now taking his twin's shoes off while the older is sitting on the bed. Neatly folded blue pajamas are already waiting next to Vergil. Dante leaves the boots next to the night stand and starts unbuttoning the vest. In the meanwhile, Vergil's tail has sneaked around him and started petting Dante's head of all things. 

Vergil is really out of it, it seems. 

When he finished changing his twin's clothes, Dante gets up and tries to go to shower, but the tail has circled around his wrist. 

“Don't go.”

“I need to take shower.”

“Since when you care so much about hygiene?”

“Since I reek of demon's blood instead of pizza. Let me go.”

“No” with how much force Vergil is holding his wrist, soon Dante won't have a hand. 

Red hunter sighs, sits on the bed and threads his fingers through Vergil's hair. The tail relaxes a little, but still had the wrist in a steel hold. 

“I'll come back soon, I just need to take a shower and throw my things to the washing machine.”

Vergil stares at him, but eventually he lets Dante go and buries himself under the blanket with a frown on his face.

He almost trips by the book on his way out of the bedroom, the one about hallucinations, laying in front of the door. Normally he wouldn't care about that, but knowing Vergil will be bitching about it I the morning, he takes it and puts back on the shelf. 

Dante has a theory of sorts about why Vergil has those visions. He's not going to share it with the older twin, God forbid, if only because he doesn't have any solid proof. 

When Vergil was cutting out his nightmares, his _ memories _ , he probably wasn't expecting his brain will take any lasting damage or that it would work as if he had the amnesia caused by trauma — brain would block out the memories that had a potential to break Vergil, so that he could go with his life as if the last twenty-four years never happened with his sanity intact (his brain probably knew the older twin is strong enough to endure those memories and that's why it never blocked them out). But what _ actually _ happened was that some pathways his nerve system made in the brain got severed and that's… very much not good from brain's perspective. The thing is, it still 'remembers' that there should be something, brain remembers making the pathways, so it's still sending out the electric signals that meet only the dead end, so they come back with nothing. So now brain tries to recreate the exact same paths by making hallucinations and false memories (although Vergil hasn't said anything about new memories yet, but also the brain would probably make them in a way that Vergil might not be aware of them even being there) so it can properly work again. 

Dante gets out of the shower, throws his clothes to the washing machine and starts it, puts on some pants and goes back to their room. Vergil seems to be asleep for first five seconds Dante takes to come close to the bed, then the tail shoots out and wraps itself around Dante's waist. He chuckles, gets under the blanket and Vergil immediately circles his arms around the younger twin, hiding his face in Dante's chest, one leg wraps over his hip. 

Who would have thought Vergil will be so needy when he's under the influence of alcohol? But he's willing to play Vergil's teddy bear if that makes him feel better, even if that means tomorrow morning he's going to wake up on the floor because his older brother will get all shy and instantly push him out of the bed. 

  


Vergil has started lying on Dante at every opportunity he could find since that embarrassing day. Besides, his brother gives really nice hugs, and the last time he's felt a gentle touch was back when he was but a little boy, so even if his pride suffers because of this, the embraces and soft touches are absolutely worth it, in Vergil's mind. His younger self would be appalled if he ever knew he'll become overly touchy-feely with his dear brother. But those were desperate times and Vergil likes the warmth of Dante's skin, which is especially soothing every time his hallucinations start again. Even Dante's power draping itself all over Vergil is welcomed now, and instead of being too hot and sticky, the embrace of it is like a warm blanket or a nice, hot bath rather than the flames of inferno that just glues itself to your skin, as Vergil thought before. No wonder Nero never even flinches, looks even _ relaxed _ when Dante feels overprotective over the boy. And all of that, coupled with Yamato, helps him being grounded in the reality. 

Sometimes, when his hallucinations aren't that bad, Vergil can slip away from them himself, without Dante's voice or Yamato's soft humming to guide him out of them, which feels really nice. He doesn't feel as helpless against those visions in those instances. 

They're on a couch, Vergil's head lies on Dante's lap, his brother's coat covers him like a blanket. His twin's fingers brush his hair and listens to music, while the older brother is reading. It's not easy in a position he is in, but Vergil manages. He's also hugging Yamato close to his chest, the feeling of her power is constantly humming calmingly. Having two of the most beloved treasures in a close proximity is soothing. 

He looks up from the book, a habit he acquired over the past month and a half, and sees two children. One is wearing white dress shirt, the other black. It reminds Vergil how they were clothed in their childhood. The children are standing with their back facing him, but slowly they're turning around to show empty eye sockets from which something he assumes is blood is dripping down their faces in a morbid likeness to tears. They're smiling, but the smiles are just, as empty as the eye sockets, the insides of their mouth are black. Their shadows then became one and grows taller and taller, until it looks like a shadow of a big tree. In the roots of the tree lays Yamato, broken in half and devoid of any power. 

The boy in white shirt grows and became a teenager, but his skin suddenly changed color from pale to purple, as if he is suffocating. The shadow tree produces a rope that embraces boy's neck and hauls him up. The second boy is doing nothing to help him as the teen is slowly dying of the lack of oxygen, yet he doesn't stop smiling. Some cracks appear on the second boys face when he grows, showing purple veins, his mouth are now full of sharp knives when he bites into the hanged boy's leg and from it instead of red blood drips something black and sluggish in consistency. 

Vergil abandons the book and hugs Yamato closer. Her energy though is getting weaker to his senses and the man feels the rising panic. 

“Vergil. Come here, brother.”

He looks up and sees how Dante's face is melting away as if it was but an ice on a hot day, leaving behind only white skull. 

“Dante…”

Vergil gets up and embraces Dante, hiding his face in his brother's shoulder. 

“I'm so sick and tired of those hallucinations. They get worse and worse by a _ day _ and I hate it so much” Vergil is so exhausted that he doesn't care about his pride. He just wants those visions to _ stop. _

An awful smell of rotten flesh and old blood hits his nose and Vergil hides even more in Dante's arms. Feeling of his brother's power is cozy and warm, it makes Vergil relax despite that awful hallucination. 

He hears breaking bones, limbs being torn apart from the body, the sickening noise of squelching and tearing the flesh with the teeth. He hears last breaths and suddenly, everything is quiet. This silence is even worse than hearing all of that and Vergil wails, because he knows his curiosity will make him look what is going on. He looks up and immediately regrets it. 

He sees Dante, just how he looked back then on, Temen-Ni-Gru, lying in a deep hole that one would expect was made to hold the coffin in its confines, the face twisted in a painful frown. His chest sports numerous cut wounds and Rebellion is pierced through his brother's heart. The hole was slowly filling up with his blood and the black liquid, similar to the one that was dripping out of the boy in a white shirt. That dark fluid is trying to get into the wounds, into Dante's mouth. 

And then Vergil hears his brother screaming. 

_ Oh, God, that _ ** _scream_ ** _ . _

The whole room is filling up with the black substance, it's finding its way inside through the cracks in walls, it's pouring down on Vergil from the ceiling, stealing away the oxygen, making Vergil's lungs slowly collapse. The vision is getting darker and darker, his breathing gets more labored and heavy as he's slowly suffocating, he feels how his heart is beating much too fast. Stars above, the last time he's been so scared was when he was eight and just lost any stability in his life as well as his whole family. 

Then he feels pain in his shoulder even through the layers of clothing and suddenly, the hallucination is gone. 

Vergil looks at Dante, gloriously _ alive _ and _ breathing _ , and _ whole. _

“Sorry, but you weren't answering to any of my calls. Had to do something” his brother gives him a sheepish smile and Vergil thinks he's never before been so glad to see it. 

His arms are so warm around Vergil, Dante's power feels like a warm blanket around his shoulders, the smell of gunpowder and strawberries, and something so _uniquely_ _Dante_ hits his nose. The soft notes of jazz music fills his ears, he can hear how his twin _breathes_ steadily, even lazily. Yamato, beautifully unbroken, _whole,_ is humming softly with her energy. 

If Vergil could, he would cry from relief. As it is, he just hugs Dante harder, exhaling heavily. 

Vergil is so, _ so _ tired of being haunted by hallucinations at day and nightmares at night. He just wants to have a nice, good night of sleep and a day that he spends on reading or dueling with his twin without those visions, is it really too much to ask for? 

It seems like it is, because the hallucinations are getting not only stronger, more morbid and more detailed, but also they're happening with a rising frequency. It's worrying. And Vergil knows Dante worries too, even when he doesn't show it. His scent has constantly the undertone of anxiety, which can be easily omitted if you don't seek it out. His twin's sleep has gotten worse too and his nightmares are happening more often than in time before-hallucinations. 

But also Vergil doesn't want to try to go to the doctor. He thinks they won't help him, but also he just _ can't _ trust anyone with his health anymore (he remembers when he once went to the doctor and it turned out this person was a demon that was trying to hunt him down. Vergil never again trusted people from hospital to help him and not kill him).

He feels his twin's lips on his face, giving him small, butterfly kisses. 

“I'm gonna try to use my contacts to see if there's a way to fix all of this.”

He doesn't want to be a burden to Dante. He doesn't want to make him use up any favors from people. 

But it tells just how exhausted by all of this Vergil is that he's not even arguing against this. 

  


The spike in Vergil's energy, even if it’s worrying, is a familiar one after two months.

The hallucinations begin anew. 

He really wishes either he or his contacts can find _ anything _ to help his brother with this particular problem that has glued itself to them like a burr to the dog's tail. The only thing that he could come up himself, not counting breaking in to the pharmacy to steal the medication that is _ not _ guaranteed to work on Vergil, is to time travel back, snatch the nightmares right under his own nose, and maybe make the contracts with them and go back to his time and see if the proximity of discarded memories will help Vergil, and see if they can work out some way to fuse them back into him, but preferably in a way that would block away those nightmares in Vergil's brain, so he won't remember them still, but his brain would be happy to have them back. 

When he gets up from the chair to get to his brother, Vergil suddenly appears in the office part of Devil May Cry with a bloodlust that reminds him of Nelo Angelo. Yamato is out of the scabbard, she's beautifully reflecting the electric light from the single light bulb. To his senses she feels… really scared. Vergil wields her with a hard grip, the knuckles of his hand are white from the painful grip he has her in. 

When his brother looks at him, it was with a face full of hate and disgust. Dante takes a step back and raises his hands as if Vergil is a wild animal. 

“Uh, brother, do you mind hiding Yamato and stop looking at me like that?”

Vergil doesn't answer, or rather answers it with Yamato cutting through his desk. 

“Hey! Could you leave this poor desk alone?! It was my favorite!” Not to mention his _ only _ desk, but Dante was really attached to it. It's been with him for over twenty years, it's been with him longer than even Lady, he _ loved _ this desk as if it was his _ child. _ He'll never find a desk more perfect than this one. 

He can't continue on his rant because the older brother is relentlessly attacking. When Vergil actually managed to cut his arm, he became even wilder. It's as if he is in berserker mode, he went absolutely _ feral _ on Dante's ass, and not in a good yummy way. 

He must not let Vergil cut him anymore. 

Dante really should stop thinking and focus more on dodging. 

“Vergil! It's a hallucination, can you hear me?! What you see is not true!”

Last time Dante bit Vergil to wake him up, but now it doesn't seem like a viable option, his brother won't let him get to his personal space. He's not going to take Devil Sword Dante too, the red hunter is _ not _ going to hurt his brother when Vergil is so out of it. What's the fun in dueling his brother when Vergil doesn't even know he's fighting with Dante? 

Then the spectral swords appear and maybe he'll take out his weapon to at the very least have a shield against them. 

“You won't fool me with your cheap tricks, Mundus! How dare you try to impersonate Dante!”

Holy shit, it's _ bad. _

Oh, holy mackerel, Vergil is so fast, Dante isn't even able to take out DSD and taking another weapon isn't even a viable option at the moment because he's in retreat in the direction of the front of the shop, and the weapons are in the back. Besides, mere daggers won't be much of a help against a blue sparkling light show and a katana. Oh, holy pizza pepperoni, it was _ close _ , Vergil almost cut his arm out. Down, left, left again, right, down, _ oh shit no, back away, _ down again and suddenly Dante is on the floor, because he actually made a full circle and tripped on the destroyed desk. He quickly rolls away before Vergil has a chance to score a shot at him and then, when he tries to get up, Vergil used his cheat mode to get _ behind Dante _ and before he can get away, his heart is pierced through. Dammit, and he actually liked this shirt too. 

There actually is a real good reason why Dante doesn't let anyone to actually pierce his heart. Humans have to guard their brains, because they're the essence of why they survive in the first place, without it there is nothing to operate their bodies. The brain decides where the resources go basing on what the nerve system is telling about the body condition. 

Meanwhile, demons have to guard their hearts, because that's what is pumping their blood through their bodies, their power is in the blood and _ the healing factor depends on a well functioning heart. _ The brain can survive without a problem, the blood and power in it can heal any damage without a fault, but when the pomp is destroyed… 

Dante coughs blood and saliva out. 

He looks at Vergil, it looks like he is confused at what he's seeing, and then the shock is written on his face. His hands start trembling, the Yamato hits the ground and not even a second later his dear brother is besides him, pulling Dante up and to his chest. 

Heh. Who would've thought the death will feel so cold? As Dante is bleeding out with a heart that has almost stopped beating, all he can feel is cold on his body, despite knowing he should be warm now. And it's getting dark too. So, so dark, just like his world went to black after what happened on Mallet Island. 

He tries to smile at Vergil, he tries to bring up his hand and touch reassuringly his face, but the muscles are refusing to work for him and… Dante is just so, so tired. Last two months, last twenty-four years were really exhausting. 

It is okay to just, close eyes for a second, right? To have a small nap, like he always takes them, just for a moment?

Vergil is talking about something, but Dante can't hear it, as if he was underwater. Everything is muffled and blurry. It also gets colder and darker. 

He's gonna close his eyes and relax, just for a second. Just like he always does. 

Just for a second… 

  


One tear, then two, then three. And then a whole flood of tears appears on Dante's cold, ashen, _ dead _ face. 

And it's all Vergil's fault. 

Last time when he cried, Vergil was eight and alone, and his family died in a great fire that consumed their home. It's only fitting that the first time after his resurrection he cries is after he killed his beloved younger brother and lose him again, this time to Vergil's sword and not the hell fire consuming their childhood. 

(He doesn't care if he's done that under the influence of hallucinations or not, Vergil should've realised, he should've _ known _ it was Dante from the beginning. 

What Vergil has done is an unforgivable crime.)

He tries to beg through his wails, he tries to threaten Dante back to life, he tries to wake him up with soft kisses and hard bites, tries giving him his blood to drink, but nothing works. 

There is no way to wake up the dead, after all. 

In the end, Vergil just settles with hugging the cold body. 

He really should do something different. Check if Dante has some sort of last will, clean up the place, throw out the destroyed desk. His brother is dead — he doesn't need anything at all now. 

Yet he can't make himself stop clinging to Dante. 

Dante wanted for his body to be burnt after his death. He didn't want any chance of demons getting to his body, because even if the blood was stale, it still carries power and his younger brother doesn't want any of them to even taste the power of the Son of Sparda. Vergil chose Dante's final resting place to be next to their childhood home. It was poetic, in a sense, for him to bury Dante in a place where it all has begun. 

Vergil digs the grave himself, just like he made the tombstone using the Yamato. 

He can feel the sadness in her energy. It resonates with his own mourning. 

“_ I was left diminished when your light went out. _ This time it was you who went first, brother, leaving me behind. I wonder, did you feel the same despair that I feel now?” 

The tombstone doesn't answer. It would only do so if it was another hallucination. 

There is just one more thing he has to do now.

Vergil comes inside the old home and stands before the painting of his family. 

The state of it is really pathetic. The faces of Dante and Sparda were obscured, half of his own was darken by the soot. Only Eva's likeness is undisturbed in any way. 

He doesn't like at all what he has to do now. 

“Mother. Father.”

He swallows the lump in his throat. 

“I…”

Just say it already. 

“I have failed. The brother I was supposed to take care of has been slayed by my own weapon, by my own hand.”

He looks in his mother's painted eyes. They look at him warmly and Vergil despises it. He doesn't deserve them. So the man turns his back to the painting and goes back outside. 

(It's an unbearably beautiful weather outside. It definitely doesn't suit in the wake of his brother's demise.) 

Vergil sits down next to the tombstone, leans on it and closes his eyes. He has killed his heart, so it's only fair that he's dead too, just like any other demon would be. 

He has all time on this world to wait for Death to come and claim him. It's just a little late, that's all. Vergil is going to wait right here for it. 

He's going to sleep until that time comes.

**Author's Note:**

> Poems:  
Emily Dickenson — I taste a liquor never brewed  
Paul Curtis — I was left diminished  
Samidare from Naruto OST — I decided to use it as a title because I was listening to it when I was editing this fic. 
> 
> My [Twitter](https://twitter.com/AsphodelSky?s=09) where I sometimes scream into the void.


End file.
